Northrop Grumman built the very first manned lunar landers back in the 1960s (when the company was called Grumman) for NASA's Apollo program. The firm made the Eagle module that carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the lunar surface for the first manned moon landing in 1969.

 

Now the company will design a vehicle to help Golden Spike achieve its goal of establishing routine commercial transportation of people to the moon and back by the end of the decade.

"This is a significant step forward in our plans," Gerry Griffin, Golden Spike's board chairman, said in a statement. "Northrop Grumman brings Golden Spike a unique body of knowledge and skills as the only company to ever build a successful human-rated lunar lander, the Apollo Lunar Module."

The founding of Golden Spike (named after the final spike built into the First Transcontinental Railroad), was announced just last month, though the project has been secretly in the works for two and a half years.